


Hiraeth

by traveller



Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF
Genre: M/M, Selective adherance to reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-11-18
Updated: 2004-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-15 14:14:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traveller/pseuds/traveller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><cite>There were red dragons everywhere, if you knew how to look. </cite></p>
            </blockquote>





	Hiraeth

**Author's Note:**

> my Welsh is terrible. my apologies - correction is welcome.

There was a time when a Welsh boy became a man at thirteen but these days a boy is still a boy when he goes off to university, still beardless; a boy that oversleeps and burns his toast and rings his mother of a Sunday to tell her about his marks. A boy: narrow-hipped, wide-mouthed, dark-eyed. It's only sense that he should find one like him, his fellow, his countryman, a brother in all but blood - and a little of that as well.

They spoke their language at home, a language that was _Cymraeg_ , yes, yes, but was also more than that. Half-words, in-between-words, their own words born from the union of their mouths.

There were red dragons everywhere, if you knew how to look.

::

Ioan works his thumb over the buttons without looking, waits for the ring, for the beep. It's afternoon in California; it's half-past too late in England.

'Rhys. Dw i... Remember the time when we– you know. You remember? And then. Ehm. That was. I was just thinking. I think it was that... but maybe not. Whatever, you remember. Anyway. Miss you, you daft prat. Nos da.'

He rings off, rolls over, and presses his nose into the hair at the back of his lover's neck. He falls asleep like that, and dreams of home.

::

Her name was Janet, but everyone called her Jenny; she had hair so fair that it was nearly white, and a crooked front tooth that Ioan loved to lick when he kissed her.

After the first time she walked around in her knickers, smoking a cigarette, untangling her hair with the fingers of the other hand. Ioan played it cool, propped himself up on his elbow, watched her move. He felt different. Older. Sort of light-headed.

'Your first, eh?' she asked, and stood by the door with her hip cocked, the pink elastic of her knickers stretching over the bone. 'A bit messy, innit?'

He didn't know what to say, brutally embarassed, so he found his denims and went. She didn't ring him in the morning.

::

They'd sit on the couch under the drape of their flag and eat ice cream out of the same carton, watch the news on BBC Wales. Later they'd get a pint or twelve and Ioan would talk about girls and Matt would talk about boys, and then they'd talk about home. _Cartref_ and _Cardiff_ are nearly the same word, you know. Sometimes Ioan would say one when he meant the other.

They'd sit up all night, start making promises around half-two _just one more smoke and then bed. right. one more, and then bed,_ and they'd start doing maths around four _if we turn in now, we'll get two hours sleep and a shower. if we turn in now we'll get an hour and a shower. if we turn in now, no shower and forty minutes nap._ They'd stumble into lectures with their coffee and sunglasses, with baseball caps pulled low; they'd sit in the back row and doze on each other's shoulders.

They still rang home of a Sunday, but only when they remembered.

::

Her name was Eliza and she told him to stop holding doors, stop pulling out chairs, he wasn't Cary bloody Grant and he could give it up if he pleased.

This was after Susan (who told him he kissed like an over-enthusiastic Labrador Retriever), and Yanika (who told him he reminded her too much of her brother), and Dana (who told him she'd had more orgasms when she was single).

This was after three years in London, this was just when things were supposed to be going brilliantly, and they were, sort of, he and Matthew had their new, bigger flat down the road and they were going on auditions and working a bit, working enough.

And Eliza was black haired and green eyed and had legs that went on for days, weeks, bloody years; she worked in advertising and her smile made Ioan's heart pound out of his chest like in the cartoons. She was smart and she was independent, she was a fantastic shag and had the most perfect breasts he'd ever seen.

'She said I was smothering, she said.' Ioan's fingers flexed around the neck of the bottle, and snuggled into Matthew's side. Red red wine, stay close to me. 'Said I was too needy, she said, and sod it all anyway, I've done with women. Finished.'

'Right, then,' Matthew said, and he pulled the blanket up farther, up to his chin. Ioan started to pass the bottle, pulled it back at the last second.

'Except I _like_ women. They're... they're soft, and they smell nice.'

Matthew snorted, and let his head loll onto Ioan's shoulder. 'Some men smell nice, too,' he said quietly.

'Yeah.' Ioan let his head drift to the left. 'You smell nice, Rhys.'

'Diolch, Io.'

'No, really.' Ioan turned and pressed his nose behind Matthew's ear. The short hair there tickled his lips when he spoke. 'Melys. Like home.'

::

The message light is blinking _2_ when he gets back from a script meeting to find an empty flat; he dumps his keys and his rucksack before he presses the button.

One. 'Baby. I went food shopping, had to or we'll starve. I mean, how'd we run out of Gruyère? Who can live like that? Anyway, forgot to leave you a note. See you soon. Love you.'

Two. 'It was, um. Gwanwyn. Dydd Gwener... nos wener, I remember because the Father Ted premiere was on earlier. Stupid show. We threw popcorn. Why do you ask? That sounded shite, I'm sorry. Doesn't matter why, good times. I mean. That sounded shite too. Hwyl, Io, call me later.'

Ioan sits at the kitchen table till he hears keys in the lock and a voice yelling, _Baby, I'm home_ ; he gets up and fumbles through brown paper sacks to find cold lips and warm hands.

::

It was a Friday night in April and when Matthew kissed Ioan it tasted like butter and ale, and when Ioan kissed back Matthew put his hand on Ioan's thigh and when Ioan thought about it for exactly fourteen and a half seconds all he could think about was that the word for friend and the word for love were only one letter different.

It was a Friday night and they'd stayed in to watch telly in Matthew's bed because Matthew's bed was bigger and squishier and had more pillows. It wouldn't be right to say that Ioan let Matthew, it was more like Matthew sort of leaned in that direction, sort of leaned and shifted and wriggled, and maybe Ioan pushed his head down, maybe he didn't. Either way Matthew went down, and he was better at it than Eliza, or even Susan who'd had those mad pouty lips.

It was a Friday night and Ioan cracked the back of his head against the wall when he came in his best friend's mouth, and after he wasn't sure which it was that made his eyes well up and brim over. After he wasn't sure what he tasted in the kiss that followed, something salty, something sweet. After he gave Matthew the world's most amateur hand job, and fell asleep with his fingers still tucked in the waist of Matthew's boxers.

Suddenly it was a Saturday morning and Ioan felt strange, a bit like a birthday, when you know you've gotten older but you can't tell from just looking. Matthew was in the kitchen singing the Pet Shop Boys, and the coffee smell was wafting down the hall. Ioan was sure everything had changed, but when he passed the mirror in the hall, he couldn't see any marks.

::

London's not as loud as New York and it's not as fake as Los Angeles; it's not sad like Glasgow or mellow like Vancouver. It's a primary coloured city, red and yellow and blue, a child's crayon box of a city with a curry takeaway on every corner.

London is like _Annwn_ \- neither hellish nor heavenly, and too pleasant for purgatory. It's not horrible. He loves it, in his way, an abiding affection, yes. But he cannot hear the lilt of his own language amidst the babel, he cannot get the city dust off his shoes, he cannot sleep through the night without reaching out, reaching westward.

::

When Matthew got back from rehearsal there were three failed attempts at bara brith in the bin, and Ioan was sat at the table, picking dried egg and sticky honey off his fingers. He'd used a recipe. He'd measured and chopped and blended like he'd seen his mam do a hundred times and a hundred times again, but it wasn't right, not even a little bit.

'It's not right because it's not home," he said, and Matthew raised his eyebrows.

'Hey? Beth sy'n bod ar-'

'Everything.' Ioan interrupted. 'Me. London. I've no proper job and no girlfriend and no... it's just this.'

Just them, just these dozen rooms. Ioan reached out and tugged at the tails of Matthew's shirt. Just this. Just us. We are our own country.

'Hey?' Matthew said again, but he stepped closer, he cupped the back of Ioan's head and Ioan leaned his cheek on Matthew's belly. Matthew was breathing quick and shallow breaths, and Ioan could feel each one, could smell the city on Matthew's skin. 'Just us,' Ioan mumbled, and Matthew's belly hitched under Ioan's lips.

'Ai e?'

'Yeah.' Ioan's hand closed on the back of Matthew's thigh, and Matthew's hand closed on the back of Ioan's neck, but when he looked up, Matthew was shaking his head.

'Don't say no,' Ioan whispered.

'It's a bad idea,' Matthew whispered back.

Ioan started undoing his buttons anyway.

::

If it's a question of landmarks, Ioan can find his way. It's against his nature, his customary precision, but give him kilometres and lights and street numbers and he'll be turned round in moments. Hand him a map and he'll read it upside down. He can find north in the sky, but not on a piece of paper.

If you say: _Go north about a mile. Turn right by the the phonebox, onto the road with all the pubs, and you want to follow that road till you see the white brick house with the oak out the front, and the one gatepost broken off, you turn left onto that road, and go until almost the end, past the park and the grocery and you'll see a blue Morris Mini parked on the pavement, on the right, that's the one,_ he'll be there at six for supper, with shoes polished and posies for the hostess.

Ioan spent hours, days, learning Matthew's landmarks, discovering all the places previously unknown. Like finding a tea shop in your road, a storefront that you walked by every day, and suddenly one afternoon there it was when you stumbled off the Underground. Bright vermilion shutters and a bright smile behind the counter. Where have you been all my life? Here, always just here.

Matthew was a gentle guide; his directions and his hands were both firm and certain. When to touch, where to touch. Harder. Softer. Careful. Breathe. He spoke English in bed, he said because all his lovers had been English, but Ioan would always answer him properly.

And when it came to it, when Ioan asked (because Matthew asked him to ask, to say if he was sure, and he was, iawn, he was sure), when Ioan had his forehead braced on his folded arms and all the air was leaving his lungs inch by inch, he thought that he really belonged for the first time since he was a child. Belonged to a feeling instead of place, belonged _there_ , in that moment, and the hiraeth left him for a little while.

::

His mobile plays a ring that's as close to an old black Bakelite telephone as you can get; he tries to grab for it without upsetting either his teacup or the head on his shoulder and smiles at the muffled _Stop wriggling, dammit_ , when he doesn't quite succeed. He knows the number, and he knows the time in California.

'Heya.'

'Heya.'

'Busy?'

'Nah.' Ioan feels more than hears the protest this time, mumbled into skin. He folds his paper one-handed. 'Having a lie-in with the news and the boy.'

'Hugh's in good form, then?'

'As ever.' Ioan looks down at the mop of curls by his side, smoothes his hand down Hugh's back. 'How's you?'

'O'r garau. Tired.' On the other side of the world, flint sparks, paper burns. Ioan listens a moment.

'It's late, Rhys.'

'Or early, Io.'

'Remember the time we got high and we were watching Labyrinth on the video?'

'You said the dragon came down off our flag and told you a secret.'

'It did.'

'Did you ever tell me what? I can't remember.'

'I did.' Ioan runs his fingers back up, up into Hugh's hair, and Hugh butts his face into Ioan's chest, like a cat, before settling again. 'Are you coming home soon? Nadolig? I'll tell you again, then.'

'Home isn't London.'

'I don't want to argue-'

'-sorry, I'm... I'm tired.'

'-with you. Christ, then get some rest.'

On the other side of the world, someone's breathing too shallowly to hear, but Ioan imagines that he can anyway. There was a time when he knew every rise and fall of that chest.

'Come home,' he repeats. 'L.A. is shit, it kills people, hey? Come home.'

Matthew hangs up.

::

And then there was Alice.

The last words she spoke to him were so vicious that they made his skin crawl for days, and Matthew said to him that only when someone had once really loved you could they hate you that much. And if only real love could turn to real hate, maybe only something that had once been so hot could turn so cold.

In the beginning it was amazing, the mingled guilt and exhilaration of sneaking around that made Ioan dizzy with wanting her. He didn't want anything else, neither bread nor sleep nor drink would satisfy.

And then when all was said and done, and then when it was real and she was his, she drifted from his grasp bit by bit; and then when all was said and done there was nothing left to do but mourn her. Grieve the bright bubbling girl he'd fallen in love with, grieve the friendship more than the lovemaking. All over but the crying, like they said in America.

There was enough crying to spare.

::

'This isn't a thing,' Matthew said with his lips in the hollow of Ioan's back and Ioan nodded sleepily, Ioan agreed, it's wasn't a thing, it was them, which was the point, wasn't it? He arched back into Matthew's mouth.

It wasn't a thing, which didn't mean it was _nothing_ , it was very much something. Ioan inhaled slowly and Matthew pressed his tongue in deeply; Ioan could feel sweat beading on the back of his neck, could feel a blush creeping up his body, embarrassed in spite of himself. He'd wondered, after all. He'd asked for it.

'You're just curious,' Matthew said, 'and I'm your best mate. That's all.'

Ioan agreed so that Matthew wouldn't stop.

::

'James _bloody_ Cameron.'

'You're going to be famous.'

'Like Richard Burton famous.'

'No, no, like... Anthony Hopkins famous.'

'Like... like _Tom Jones_ famous.'

They could barely hold their heads up, they could barely lift the champagne bottles, they could barely breathe for laughing. The good clean drunken kind of laughter, high on victory and each other's sweat. Faces crammed in each other's necks, taste of salt, and it was Matthew who stopped laughing first. Ioan always remembered that.

'You'll go,' he said.

Ioan shook his head. 'Dydw i ddim yn deall. What?'

Matthew's inhalation tickled against Ioan's throat, his breath was hot and sweet. 'You'll go. At yr Ameriq.' He sat back, and shook his head. 'Hollywood. You'll go.'

'Don't be daft.' Ioan leaned forward, nearly fell, but he kissed Matthew anyway, sloppy tongue and bruising hands. 'Not going anywhere.'

'Even when you're Tom Jones famous?'

'Even. Ever.'

It was hours later, it was a strawberry dawn and the last lemony streetlight, and it was years before Ioan knew that he'd heard correctly, still drunk and freshly fucked and drifting there, between the red sky and the white sheets.

'Maybe I'll go, then.' Matthew said into the pink. 'Maybe I'll go first.'

::

By supper time there's an apology on Ioan's voicemail, mumble/sung in two and a half languages. It was late. It was a bad time. He shouldn't have rung in such a bad mood, but hey, hey, hey Io... _Hey Io, remember the time we went home for the holidays, remember how we borrowed my da's Rover and went for fags and changed our minds at the end of the street? And we took that mad drive up the A470 except remember we got off at Brecon and you said, let me drive, and when I woke up we were outside Barmouth and remember, that was the year we sat on the beach on Christmas day, remember wishing on the first star that night, and we only started home because we were hungry._

And by the time they got back it was Boxing Day, and Mr Evans said it was boys being boys even though they were both closer to thirty than could get away with that sort of thing, and Ioan erases the message before he can listen to it a second time, a third and a fourth time and once more for good measure.

::

And then there was Hugh, sooner, later, and just in time.

::

The week after Matthew moved to Los Angeles, Ioan kept finding pieces of him scattered about. A mix tape wedged between the sofa cushions, a paperback science fiction novel next to the toilet. Bottles of shampoo and crème rinse, each with an inch in the bottom, stood plastic sentry on either side of the tub. A pen cap, chewed nearly beyond recognition. A yellow butane lighter. A grocery list.

'They used to, in Ireland, they used to a hold a wake,' Ioan when Matthew rang the first time, 'for an émigré who was off to America. They didn't expect they'd ever see them again.'

Matthew snorted. 'Good thing I'm not fuckin' Irish, then, hey?'

The week after Matthew moved to Los Angeles, Ioan kept ringing. He rang when he found the tape and the book. He rang to find out if he should throw out the shampoo and the crème rinse. He rang when he woke up at midnight and couldn't sleep. He rang when he burnt his omelet for lunch. He rang when he got a funny flier handed to him on the street. He rang when he couldn't find his trainers. He rang from the house phone when he couldn't find his mobile.

Alice laughed at him and said sometimes it seemed like he was in love with the guy, and Ioan said she mustn't have ever had a best mate before, and Alice told him it wasn't she didn't understand having a mate, but that his trouble was that he didn't know how to be alone.

'Why would I want to be?' Ioan asked. His thumb itched over the buttons on the phone in his hand.

'Maybe you should try it sometime,' she said, and she wasn't laughing anymore.

::

When he can go into the shop in the next street and buy bara and ymenyn and llaeth and caws and nobody stares because he's forgotten the English words again, that's when he knows he's home. When he can walk down the road and say good morning and call everyone he meets by name, that's when he knows he's home. When he can turn on the radio and the news is read to him in his own language, that's when he knows he's home.

Home is full of the smell of baking, it's cookery books weighted open with glass jars of spices, it's having tea on the hob when he gets home in the evening. Home is full of song, _Mae hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi_ and _Calon Lan_ and _Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly..._ Home is his boots on the mat inside the door, home is a kiss good night and another good morning and another just because.

It was surprising how unsurprising it was to find that home was a quiet neighbourhood on the other side of the island, in a city he'd sworn he'd leave at the first best chance.

He still rings his mam of a Sunday, because Hugh reminds him.

The trees in his street have dropped the last of their leaves, and someone's strung Christmas lights in all of the bare branches, setting the whole mile a-twinkle. When he walks along, string bag in hand, his breath precedes him in frozen swirls, a smoky scout leading the way. He flicks his fag end into the gutter, fishes his phone out of his jacket pocket and dials.

::

They lay on their backs, sweat and come going cold on their bellies, passed a cigarette back and forth between them. The sheets reeked of fucking, even with the window cracked open, and Matthew wasn't smiling. Ioan waved off the fag, rolled onto his stomach and fished his own out of the pack. He used Matthew's yellow lighter, he pushed himself up on his elbows and picked a hair out of his mouth.

'Has to end, does it?'

Matthew's shoulders hitched, a lying-down shrug. Ash tumbled onto his chest. He brushed it away. 'It wasn’t anything, was it?'

'Efallai, what if it was? So?'

'So it wasn't, right? So it can't end if it wasn't. And you've... I've... It's... it's not on, not with your best mate.' Matthew rolled away, crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray. 'Aflwydd... like... fucking disaster, right? Amazing we're still speaking as it is.'

The floor was frigid beneath Ioan's bare feet, and he pulled them back with a hiss before trying again, reaching out with pointed toe to try to drag his denims closer. 'O'r gorau. Whatever.'

There was no sound, no motion behind him for a several breaths. He couldn't reach his pants without getting up and gave up, let the cold seep in through his heels. Everything was changing.

'Nothing changes,' Matthew said finally. The bed dipped and shifted; lips ghosted over the back of Ioan's neck. 'It's still us, isn't it?'

'Of course,' Ioan agreed, and oofed when Matthew hugged him hard. Of course. It was still them and Ioan wasn't lonely and you could still go home again, if you wanted to bad enough. No place like it.

::

The dragon's secret had been delivered in English, which was the strangest part of all, if you didn't count the part where Y Ddraig Goch was sitting in their lounge smoking a cigarette and sprawling in the green chair.

'So what was it?'

Ioan shifts foot to foot in the cold, hunching into his collar. The plastic of his mobile is icy against his ear, and he doesn't remember what it said, honestly, he just remembers the voice, warm and comforting, somehow familiar and clearly Saesneg.

He considers making something up.

'I don't remember, Rhys. Long time ago.'

'Remember the day after, though.'

'Yeah, yeah.'

They'd driven all day to get home, to stay only for a hot meal and a glass of beer, then back all night. Matthew had fallen asleep across the front seat and drooled on Ioan's trouser leg, and they listened to the same mix tape all the way there and all the way back.

'Do you miss it?' There were horns honking, brakes and engines and the rumble of trucks. Someone shouts for a taxi. Ioan's street is quiet. A crisp packet blows along the pavement and dances with yesterday's news.

Ioan smiles, and looks westward before he answers. Up the stair, the tea is waiting.


End file.
